BUYING

BUYING; A Nimble Agent Wants to Know, What Recession?

By KEVIN SACK

Published: February 15, 2002

ATLANTA—
THE middle-aged teacher is all business as she walks into the sales office of the Clifton, an upscale condominium complex being built near Emory University, in the leafy northeast section of the city.

J. Dunn, the project's on-site sales agent, hopes to begin his pitch by guiding her to a scale model and describing the building's amenities. She is having none of it, and waves him off as dismissively as if hanging up on a telemarketer. Her body language makes it clear that she intends to be the alpha dog in this encounter.

''Here's what I want,'' she asserts. ''I want quiet.''

''Well, we're all concrete and steel,'' Mr. Dunn responds.

''I've heard about parents buying them for their kids at Emory,'' she says, raising one eyebrow.

''There will be some,'' he counters, ''but it's not going to be like a college dorm.''

As she glides back toward the model, Mr. Dunn spots his opportunity. ''The one I bought is right here,'' he says, pointing to a one-bedroom on the first floor.

This intravenous injection of credibility has the intended effect, and you can feel the dynamic shifting. Now Mr. Dunn is setting the agenda, and his client is listening intently as he boasts of the 10-foot ceilings, the spacious storage units, the second fireplace in the master, the shoulder-high wainscoting in the foyer. When she arrived, all brusqueness and attitude, it seemed she might leave before removing her coat. Instead, she has stayed an hour and a half.

Mr. Dunn and the teacher have just exchanged the lead in a dance routine familiar to almost everyone who has chased the American dream of homeownership. It's really a three-way tango, involving the buyer, the seller and the real estate agent, who makes his living bringing the other two in step. A good agent can make it look easy, but with the mixture of money, taste and emotion involved, it rarely is.

''You have to be adaptable,'' Mr. Dunn explained later, discussing the craft of real estate sales. Describing his exchange with the teacher, he said: ''In a situation like that, you have to let them feel they're in control, but then bring them around to where you want them to be. When she left, I was in control.''

Don't tell John Baxter Dunn 3rd about the recession. He is doing just fine. While real estate sales have cooled a tad in Atlanta, business remains heated in the in-town market where Mr. Dunn, 44, has made a mark after only three years. Two years ago, he gained notice by selling $12 million worth of property in his rookie year, garnering a variety of awards. This year, with contracts expected to close on dozens of homes at the Clifton, he expects to tally more than $20 million in sales.

''I'm having a very good year,'' he said, driving his spotless black Saab to meet a client. ''People are buying. It's still a great city and lots of people are moving in. There is a lot of demand for product.''

Mr. Dunn's superiors consider him a natural salesman. He is knowledgeable about his market, well trained, hard-working and, above all, highly empathetic. ''He's just beautiful to watch,'' said Victor R. Miller, the managing broker of the Condo Store, a local realty company owned by Coldwell Banker.

A North Carolina native, Mr. Dunn majored in psychology at Chapel Hill, dropped out of seminary at Wake Forest University, moved to Atlanta 19 years ago and sold office trailers to construction companies. His next gig was with Tiffany & Company in corporate sales. A friend persuaded him to give real estate a try, and the prospect of helping people fulfill their dreams appealed to him.

''You work all your life to buy a home,'' he said, ''and I thought working with someone to find their perfect house would be the best thing you could do.''

Mr. Dunn works five to six days a week at the Clifton, where units cost $275,000 to $850,000. Though he is affiliated with the Condo Store, he is an independent contractor who works purely for commission, sometimes splitting a 6 or 7 percent cut with another agent.

During his off hours, he takes clients, many of them personal friends, on daylong odysseys to look at available resale property, mostly condominiums in Midtown and Buckhead. Appearances matter on such days, like a recent Sunday when he dragged John Ballard to 10 condominiums. Selling million-dollar condominiums demands a million-dollar image. He is outfitted with a cellphone and pager that both chimes and vibrates, seemingly all the time. The fancy car attests to his success, and his stylish black turtleneck highlights salt-and-pepper hair and gleaming white teeth. Not for nothing was he voted best-dressed in high school.

''A lot is about perception,'' he said. ''You have to be confident and you can't be fearful. If you're nervous, or if you have doubt and uncertainty about your product or what the economy is going to be like, then your client is going to pick up on it.

''They've already got all these emotions at their fingertips -- fear, excitement, apprehension -- and if you've got an agent who can be the objective voice they need and who can talk them through the pluses and minuses, it can be very important.''